Is minneapolis sprawled? (corporate, cities, town)

[Slig]

Originally Posted by golfgal

But technically bulldozing an old house isn't considered "green" because the old house parts end up in a landfill. The accepted "green" procedure is to renovate the existing house using as much of that as possible.

Check out this house and it will give you an idea of what it takes to really build a 'green' house:

EcoDEEP Haus

I never said it was the greenest scenario possible. I'm just saying that from time to time for whatever reason a house has to be demolished and the lot will become vacant. You can't renovate a house that has a shot foundation or a house that burns to the ground. In situations like those, opening the lot for new construction may be the best option. There is a house on my block that will fall into the same category. You can go ahead and buy it and rennovate it if you want but it doesn't matter how many thousands of dollars you flush on it, the house is going to tip over cow style in like 5 years.

I was under the impression that the poster I was replying to was convinced on building her dream house. It may not be the greenest option but given the notion that new construction is the only desired option, it is better than clearing out another several thousand feet of wilderness to build a new house.

Overall I would agree with you though, that's why I bought a renovated house that was built before any of my grandparents were even born.

[MNNative]

Originally Posted by Slig

I was under the impression that the poster I was replying to was convinced on building her dream house.

Yes, we'd ideally build our home to make it exactly what we're looking for but who knows down the road whether we'll take an existing home that has the right bones and then renovate. Both your and Golfgal's suggestions are appropriate and truthful. And very helpful for others to hear as well, I'm sure.

[tijlover]

Originally Posted by Slig

It's no use comparing our metro area to other ones. Urban sprawl is happening everywhere. The best way to stop it is to stop new construction on the outskirts and instead increase the density of the current metropolitan area. There is enough space in Minneapolis and St. Paul proper to hold another 500,000 people no problem.

True, there's lots of space for development in Minneapolis/St. Paul but will the powerful anti-highrise/midrise, not in my backyard neighborhood groups allow that?

I lived in Mpls. from 1972-1993 and I witnessed this firsthand, having lived in Cedar Riverside, Loring Park, and reading about the anti-highise groups around Uptown, the Lakes, the Wedge, stopping any new high density project to their neighborhoods.

I was recently in the Twin Cities, having visited my brother out in Shakopee, and I was shell-shocked at how the Twin Cities continues on their sinful ways of eating up more and more valuable farm land. Where will it all end? At the South Dakota border?

And I pin the blame, partly, on these selfish, powerful neighborhood groups and historical preservationists. As I do on the same groups who control the growth in San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Gee whiz! Malibu has 25 miles of coastline selfishly shared by 25,000 people.
Wouldn't putting a hundred or so highrises or midrises along that coast, and south of there, cut down on Los Angeles sprawl?

Same with Minneapolis. Let them build some 30-40 story high rises around Lake Calhoun, put some highrises in Uptown, more high rises around Loring park and wouldn't that cut down on some of that sprawl in the Twin Cities?

Here in Las Vegas, we don't have much for zoning or neighborhood control groups, and I'm amazed how well it works without having everything rubber-stamped by some powerful neighborhood activist group. The only time I recall a neighborhood group opposing a project is when Stupak proposed building a Titanic-themed resort bordering the Huntridge district as the residents weren't fond of looking out at a 250 foot tall iceberg everyday.
Understandable, and it was shelved.

[Joe3rdwash]

Of course the Twin Cities are Sprawled
Big businesses like Target and Bestbuy HQ's are in the suburbs
adding 2 a bigger sprawl
MPLS and St Paul is smaller then the metro area

[MN55]

I would say about half of the metropolitan area population is sprawled. As far as I'm concerned anything outside of the 494/694 loop is sprawl zone.

I would not agree with that completly. White Bear is outside the loop and is definitely not sprawl. Hugo and Vadnais Heights yes, but White Bear Lake no. It is one of the few burbs with almost all grid streets and the city is very strict in not letting big box stores into the city proper.

The Downtown area is also pretty dense for a suburb. The area between Hwy 96 to the north, White Bear Ave to the south, Hwy 61 to the west, and the lake to the east is quite dense and home to numerous local shops. A CVS is the only chain store I can think of in that area. The Birch Lake, Mead Park, Florence Park, Bald Eagle Lake, South Side, and Birchwood Village neighborhoods are also older and fairly dense, albeit with quite a bit less stores within walking distance. The only area in White Bear proper that I can think of as being sprawl is the Willow Lake Centex development area in the southwest corner.

And there is not a town elsewhere in the metro with the community pride White Bear has. A large percent of people in the town have had relatives there for generations. You can't go down a street without seeing a dozen polar bear statues in the frontyards. The high school sports have a huge following, and the school has probably the largest student section in the state for hockey games. 90% of the town loves the Bears- the other 10%, including me, went to Hill-Murray and is hated by the other 90% Go Pioneers!

White Bear's "suburbs" though - Vadnais Heights, Gem Lake, Dellwood, Hugo, etc are the definition of sprawl.

Stillwater's downtown is also similar, although the town in general is quite sprawly.

[Slig]

Originally Posted by Joe3rdwash

Of course the Twin Cities are Sprawled
Big businesses like Target and Bestbuy HQ's are in the suburbs
adding 2 a bigger sprawl
MPLS and St Paul is smaller then the metro area

I'm not disagreeing you about Twin Cities sprawl but Target's HQ is actually located in downtown Minneapolis: target corporate headquarters - Google Maps

[DaPerpKazoo]

While they do maintain that the legal HQ is downtown, they do have the huge campus out in Brooklyn Park. That's where all the expansion is planned (or was planned prior to the credit collapse).

It makes me so angry to hear about companies with offices in suburbs. It is just plain wrong in every way.

The Twin Cities is terribly sprawled. I would say that certainly everything outside of the 494/694 is sprawl (excepting the old Main Streets), and quite a bit of what's in the loop is as well.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by DaPerpKazoo

It makes me so angry to hear about companies with offices in suburbs. It is just plain wrong in every way.

If the employees tend to live in the suburbs, why not locate offices in that area?

The Atlanta metro has a few very large business nodes in the suburbs for precisely that reason ... there are 10x more people in the burbs than in the City of Atlanta itself, and the suburban nodes like the Perimeter area or Cumberland are convenient for both.

The Twin Cities is roughly similar in terms of suburb versus core city populations, which is why you seen large corporate offices located in the suburbs. In many cases, that's where the employees want to live, and the locations are also accessible from the urban core for the few folks who want to work there and also want to actually live downtown.

[uptown_urbanist]

The problem is that so many of the suburban headquarters are not accessible to those in the city (or those who live on the other side of the metro area), or at least are only easily accessible to those using cars. Some offices and campuses are better served by public transit than others, but from a transportation (and therefore traffic) point of view it's a lot easier when they're located downtown, or at the very least in an area well served by frequent bus service. Twin Cities public transportation is still, for the most part, designed for commuters coming into downtown, not out, so for most people working in the suburbs taking the bus or train isn't an easy option. The result is more cars and more traffic.

[Wellstone]

well there certainly are a ton of vacant properties out in the exurbs where morons extended their limits and bought as much house as they could afford, took on a 60 minute commute, gas went up to $4 a gallon, they couldn't afford to make the drive, tried to sell the house with no buyers and ended up in foreclosure. most of these are in wright, sherburne, anoka, and isanti counties.